3 Takeaways From Pittsburgh Pirates 4 Game Sweep Of The Reds

Welcome back clean up hitter Josh Bell

Entering this series Pirate first baseman Josh Bell was off to a sluggish start. In the team’s first four games of the season he was just 2-for-16 with two walks and zero extra base hits. Against the Reds, Bell’s bat came to life.

Against the Reds Bell was 7-for-15 with a walk, three doubles, and his first two home runs of the 2019 season. This included the 474-foot mammoth blast that Bell launched in Sunday afternoon’s 7-5 victory. This home run is the second longest home run hit in the Major so far this season.

Bell putting it all together and getting hot at the plate should not be a surprise. His average exit velocity of 94.7 miles per hour is 6 MPH higher than the MLB average. So, Bell was making quality contact during the season’s first four games, the hits were just not dropping in.

Getting a version of Bell that is a combination of the 25+ home run hitter he was in 2017 with the high on-base percentage hitter he was in 2016 and 2018 would be a bigger boost for the Pirate lineup than any offseason addition could have been. This past weekend we saw signs of Bell becoming that hitter. Hopefully, this weekend was a sign of things to come from the Pirates’ clean up hitter.

Jason Martin impresses in his debut series

While the Pittsburgh Pirates are off to a good start, they have been hit hard by the injury bug. 20% of the team’s projected 25-man roster is currently on the injured list. This includes a trio of outfielders in Corey Dickerson, Gregory Polanco, and Lonnie Chisenhall.

While Polanco and Chisenhall started the season on the IL, Dickerson joined them on Thursday with a shoulder injury. All of these outfield injuries opened the door for outfield prospect Jason Martin. Martin was promoted to the Majors for the first time on Friday and he went on to have an impressive weekend.

Martin started in left field on both Saturday and Sunday. This included batting lead off for the Pirates on Saturday afternoon. In his first two career games Martin went 3-for-6 with a double, a walk, a stolen base, and his first career RBI. He also looked comfortable manning the challenging PNC Park left field.

Moving forward, Martin could begin to carve out a role for the Pirates. Fans could, and honestly should, see a lot of Martin in the starting lineup until the team starts to get healthy in the outfield. Even once the outfield is healthy again, Martin should still have a role on the Pirate bench. With his strong performance in Spring Training, at Double-A in 2018, and now his strong start to his MLB career, Martin is making his case to be part of the team’s future.

This team has a great clubhouse

Having good team chemistry is vital in any sport. When it comes to the 2019 Pittsburgh Pirates, this certainly does not appear to be an issue.

Over the weekend the team had to fight and battle to get their four victories. On Thursday and Friday they used small ball and players unselfishly bunted and took pitches to allow teammates to steal bases in a pair of hard fought 2-0 wins.

In both Saturday and Sunday’s victories the team had to come from behind to take down the Reds. This included needing extra innings on Saturday afternoon, before Kevin Newman recorded his first career walk off hit.

Being unselfish and having a never say die attitude are attributes of a baseball team with great clubhouse chemistry. This clubhouse chemistry and the comradery that his Pirates team has was also on display when the benches cleared on Sunday.

Often times when benches clear guys just stand around and yell some then it ends. Well, on Sunday, it was more than that. Josh Bell immediately got in position to protect his starting pitcher – Chris Archer. Charging in from the bullpen, and relievers rarely do anything in these scuffles, Keone Kela and Felipe Vazquez were ready to go to bat for their teammates and wound up getting ejected as a result of their altercation with Yasiel Puig. And let’s not forget Trevor Williams jumping the dugout fence, charging the field, and immediately yelling in the face of Reds players.

It did not end on the field, either. After the game, multiple Pirate players took to Twitter expressing their love for one another and the city in which they play.

It was not just the Pirate players who got in on the show of support on Twitter after the game. Assistant hitting coach Jacob Cruz did as well.

It’s safe to say this team has a great clubhouse. The chemistry, brotherhood, trust, and love are all there. Due to this, the Pirates are a team that will always go down swinging, some times literally, and never give up. And all of that was on display over the weekend.